planning

Ever wake up in the morning feeling a little frazzled and chaotic? Maybe you had a long night, the night before, because the baby wouldn’t sleep or one of your kids had a nightmare. Perhaps, you have too much laundry to do, groceries to pick up, and the kids have practice. Don’t forget that you still have to decide what to make for dinner, oh and lunch…but you should probably take care of breakfast first, right?!

If you ever wake up feeling overwhelmed by the thought of what you have to do for the day, you need to make sure that you are planning. Not just pretty planning, although that makes it fun, but actually planning your activities.

There’s a lot of talk about this topic of planing today, but it really isn’t anything new. Someone has just put a spin on it.

When I was a little girl, I remember seeing my mother with this big black book. It may not have been that big because looking back, I realize the my perception as a child was a bit skewed. Almost everything looked big to me.

Anyway, my mother had a black leather binder that she kept with her all the time. She wrote phone numbers in it. I saw her taking notes and keeping track of her bills. What I didn’t know until recently was that it was a Franklin Covey classic binder.

That might not be a big deal to you, or it might, but that’s big in planner society.

There I was, a little girl, witnessing, first hand, what it meant to take charge of my day and my life. I didn’t know what an impact that would have on me, until many years later.

Fast forward to today, I have my own Franklin Covey planner. Let me correct that. I have multiple planners in multiple sizes and they all have helped me get the job done.

My mother was a single mom and she got the job done. She had to do her job at work and then come home and get the job done at our house too. I never wondered how she did it as a child, but when I became a mother, I wondered. I realized a few years ago that she remained focused by using that system of writing down her thoughts and plans to stay focused on her goals.

See, we all wake up in the morning a little frazzled. We have to take the time to gather ourselves and focus on what’s important. We should not wake up on 100. We have to pace ourselves, or else we can get drained before the end of the day.

You have to put things in place to assist you with leveling up. Like my mother, you need the things that you are going to keep with you, so that you can focus and feel less overwhelmed.

5 Tools You Will Need

Here are the five things that you need to plan your day. I’ll go more in detail in a future post, so make sure to subscribe to get notified when it publishes. The list is below.

The right mindset. You have to decide that you are going to have order and focus in your life. If you don’t take charge of somethings, disorder and chaos will wreak havoc in your life.

A prayerful heart and your bible. You must have your bible, or bible app, to help you frame your thought patterns for the day. This coupled with a prayerful heart will help you make a well thought out and executable plan of action.

Commitment to move forward and progress. There is no point in planning your day, if you aren’t going to be committed to the tasks. Everything might not always go according to plan, that’s life, but you have to be committed to moving forward and progressing.

A notebook and a beautiful pen. These could technically be two different tools, but you can’t use one without the other. The beautiful pen doesn’t have to be beautiful to anyone else except you. If you like the way that it writes and glides across the paper, it will work. These two items will help you to focus your thoughts before you actually start planning. They will also help you not to lose focus while you plan. Let’s be honest. Things come up. People have requests and we can get side tracked, if not careful.

A planner to write down your plan, track your progress, and review for hindsight. There are so many different types of planners out there to choose from. However, I suggest that you get something that is aesthetically pleasing. You will be using it daily. It also needs to be functional and durable. Don’t get anything that might fall apart on you in a month or six months, at that.

Again, we are going to go into more detail about these five things, in a later post, so make sure to subscribe, but for now, start thinking about what I’ve shared with you today. If you don’t already have a planner, begin looking around to see what’s available. Don’t purchase anything just yet, because we are going to discuss your options…and there are a lot of them out there.

If you have any specific questions that you’d like me to address in the future, regarding planning, post a comment below or send me an email at makeda@beingmrsmom.com

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Sometimes, we get distracted, in life, by the million and one things that we have to do. We can have so much on our minds that we feel like we cannot accomplish our goals. This can often lead us to struggle with completing our tasks. In the video below, I share 7 effective steps to focus on a task and complete it.

This week, I published a video on Youtube about loving wisdom and one of the things that we must begin to do is utilize our time in the best way possible. Take a quick 3-5 minutes to watch the video on being less distracted and be encouraged. Make sure to share it, so someone else can be encouraged, as well.

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As a woman that loves to plan, I often try to keep things orderly and functioning well. I like my planner, my pen, and my paper. And although I haven’t always been this way, I do my best to plan everything out. That plan is subject to change because I am married with four children, and really, because I am a human being, living in this world. Yet, still there are times where I am thrown completely off because of my desire for predictability and order.

If I can be honest with you, this has to do with my desire to control situations, so that things aren’t thrown off-balance and I’m not flung into a situation that I didn’t expect or feel that I can’t handle. Again, I haven’t always been this way, but in trying to be a woman of wisdom, I have desired to think through situations and plan how I am going to handle them. My plan would be perfect if I set in some high authoritative place, like God, but I’m not Him. I am merely a woman, clothed in flesh and living my life the best way that I can.

I have always had big dreams and this year, I took the plunge in to two of them.

Writing a book

Starting a business

Coupled together with life, I have found myself in a place of frustration because, well, we don’t live in a box. Although I set deadlines, things happen. For instance, I hurt my back and could not do all of the things that I wanted to do physically, so I had to rely on my family. They were very helpful and I am blessed to have them. Needless to say, my schedule was thrown off. I attempted to pull and push my way out of my physical limitations and, as it should be assumed, it took a toll on me emotionally.

I planned and structured events and business deals, but all parties just did not have the same schedule as I had. If I were to put it in the simplest way possible, my desire for perfection, was only that, a desire. Perfection was not going to, nor is it ever going to happen.

Ok.

Let me stop here for a second. I think you and I need to allow this statement to just sink in.

Perfection is never going to happen.

Our desire for perfection and control, literally sends our spirit out into a realm of frenzy because we were never meant to be perfect or in control of everything. We were placed in this world with the Spirit of the Living God to lead us and guide us throughout our lives. He is here to help us maneuver through the situations, ins and outs of life. No matter how much we try to take the steering wheel, its not our place to be in total control.

Think on this.

When life is busy and we want to be…., we have a tendency to try to attempt to take the reins from God. We attempt to control life. We don’t do it purposely, but when we do this, hurry up and go “thing,” we are trying to take our lives out of the hands of God. He’s the one who makes this whole world function and yet, somewhere in our minds, we believe that we can do it better. No matter how sincere or humble we are, we have all done it at one point and time in our lives. Believe it or not, we do it again and again. Then we wonder why we are stressed.

We wonder why things don’t seem to be going right.

Where did the problems come from?

Taking our lives out of the hands of God, not following His will, trying life our own way…that’s where the frustration comes in. And no matter how giant or small of a moment it has been that we have found ourselves in this place, we have to come back.

We have to ask Him to forgive us. We have to push forward in His will, listening to His Spirit, and seeking His face. That’s it!

When we do this, with a sincere heart, laying it all before Him, He takes the reigns and fixes our lives, orders our steps, and makes life beautiful again.

That’s what the KING of the world does. He rules and reigns. He orders and fixes our hearts and our lives.

In short…maybe not so short…

Our desires send us out of whack. The world is only doing what it does normally. It is functioning chaotically and we are striving for it to have some sort of order. Yet, in this process we forget that we are not all-powerful. Perfectionism is not really an accurate picture of any human being on this earth. It is simply and ideal. And we all love ideals.

Control is not really all that we perceive it to be. It is simply that a perception. We aren’t in control.

Yep! I said it…

We aren’t in control.

Whether reactive or proactive, we are not in control. It isn’t until we step into the will of God. Taking our rightful place in His plan, using the power that has been given to us by God, through Christ, in pray and in faithful deed, that we are in control…with Him.

Faithful deed…

Not fearful actions. We have to be living and walking in faith when we proclaim that this and that will be, expecting that it will be.

Now…let’s do this.

Let’s check ourselves with the word of God and see where we stand. Let this be our continual endeavor…to be in right standing with God.

Please take a moment to read Psalm 19 below and the watch the video at the end of this post.

The heavens declare the glory of God;And the firmament shows His handiwork.Day unto day utters speech,And night unto night reveals knowledge.There is no speech nor languageWhere their voice is not heard.Their line has gone out through all the earth,And their words to the end of the world.

In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun,Which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,And rejoices like a strong man to run its race.Its rising is from one end of heaven,And its circuit to the other end;And there is nothing hidden from its heat.

The law of the Lordis perfect, converting the soul;The testimony of the Lordis sure, making wise the simple;The statutes of the Lordare right, rejoicing the heart;The commandment of the Lordis pure, enlightening the eyes;The fear of the Lordis clean, enduring forever;The judgments of the Lordare true and righteous altogether.More to be desired are they than gold,Yea, than much fine gold;Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.Moreover by them Your servant is warned,And in keeping them there is great reward.

Who can understand his errors?Cleanse me from secret faults.Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins;Let them not have dominion over me.Then I shall be blameless,And I shall be innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heartBe acceptable in Your sight,O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.

I pray that you have been blessed by this and I look forward to hearing any thoughts that you have on control. Has this spoken to you at all? Do you find yourself in this place, ever? How do you handle it? Do you handle it at all?

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